


give you what you're giving me

by violentdarlings



Category: Me Before You (2016), Me Before You - Jojo Moyes
Genre: Airbender Louisa, Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Bloodbender Nathan, F/M, Firebender Will, Loss of Bending Ability, Quadriplegia, no knowledge of Avatar required, off the edge of the map mate, the Avatar AU no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7319047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it turns out, bending doesn't change as much as you might think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	give you what you're giving me

**Author's Note:**

> Officially the most WTF crossover I've ever written. That includes the time I crossed POTO with Repo.
> 
> Me Before You belongs to Jojo Moyes.

_You are the only thing_

_That makes me want to live at all_

_When I am with you_

_There's no reason to pretend_

_When I am with you I feel flames again_

_\- Flames, VAST_

 

It’s never been explicitly said to Will that his ability to firebend had been the reason behind his success, although it’s certainly been implied often enough. There hadn’t been a bender on either side of his family in five generations, before he was born. Needless to say, when his parents had found out, they’d been thrilled. An earthbender would have been acceptable enough, even a waterbender for a son would not have been anything to sneeze at. But _fire_. Now there was an element for a leader.

It didn’t hurt that he was one of the most powerful firebenders in the country. And even now Will doesn’t know if he’d be the same man, if he couldn’t bend. If he’d be as driven and as passionate and as wild as he’d been once, before a motorcycle had cut off nearly everything below C5. He’s told, later, that the only reason he survived was because a passing metalbender had attempted to halt the motorcycle in the split second of the accident. The doctors expect him to be grateful, but for years afterward, Will loathes that unknown metalbender, for saving his life. For not letting it end.

After the accident (and several failed operations and attempts at healing his shattered spine) he’s left with no movement below his neck and precious little else. Alicia is the first to go. Well, he’d always known she loved him for his success as much as for his personality. Adored the gifts and the flames that he can conjure from thin air just as much as his smile and his heart. It is not truly surprising, when Alicia goes, although it still hurts like hell.

His old friends fall away one by one. They have nothing in common anymore, and living so far away in Stortfold doesn’t help. As for his sister, she never says so, but Will knows she’s secretly pleased. Hadn’t she loathed him, their whole childhood, for his ability to bend? When she couldn’t so much as light a candle, or ripple a puddle, or move a stone? There is not a drop of bender blood in Georgina. She knows it, their parents know it, and Will knows it. And she’d been insanely jealous.

Well. Who’s jealous now?

His parents interview a number of candidates for the position of his nurse. Will reads their CVs idly on his laptop, using his finger to move the mouse. There are a few benders. Water, mostly, two earth, and decidedly no firebenders. Nursing is rather an odd career choice for firebenders.

The one they eventually choose is a steady New Zealander called Nathan. Will likes him almost immediately, for all their abilities are complete opposites. When he mentions this to Nathan, a few months into their working relationship, his caregiver reddens a little.

“I may not… exactly… be a regular waterbender,” he confesses. Will arches an eyebrow.

“You’ll have to elaborate a trifle,” Will replies. Nathan sighs, and moves in a sudden, fluid pattern. Will’s good arm lifts off the armrest and drops neatly into his lap. Will looks down at his hand, and then, in pure shock, up at Nathan.

“Jesus. Don’t look at me like that,” Nathan mumbles, staring hard at his feet. “It’s not that big a deal, mate.”

“You’re a bloodbender,” Will retorts. “Nathan, do you have any idea how rare they are?” Nathan shrugs and scuffs at the ground with a shoe.

“I have some idea,” he says. “We’re more common, in the Southern Hemisphere. No idea why.” But Will has thought of something else.

“So that’s how you lift me so easily,” he accuses. “You’ve been using a little bit of your ability to lighten the load. That officially counts as cheating, Nate.”

“It gets the job done,” Nathan replies mildly. “You’ve never noticed before.”

“Can it affect blood pressure?” Will wants to know. “Because mine has been suspiciously level ever since you started working here.”

Nathan grins.

Time goes on.  He doesn’t get better. Eventually, he tries to kill himself, and wakes up in hospital just in time to make a deal with his mum and dad. And that is how he meets Louisa Clark.

Louisa Clark is ordinary. Will knows this, from the moment he lays eyes on her in her torn skirt and hideous jacket. His mother would have mentioned if she could bend. Which means that she can’t, for all there is a certain grace to her movements sometimes that Will can’t shake out of his head.

She’s chatty and makes far too much tea and grinds on Will’s last nerve. There isn’t an ounce of inherent malice in the girl, for all her very presence is enough to irritate him. It’s not her fault he’s a grouchy old bastard with a fucked up spine and too many memories of when he had the world at his fingertips. When he could dive and climb and swim and fuck and _bend_.

Will envisages six months (or less) of baiting Miss Clark until she quits, so it’s a surprise when she calls him an arse and gives it back to him as good as he gave. It’s an agreeable surprise. He actually enjoys people speaking to him like he’s not an invalid trapped in a wheelchair. it makes a pleasant change from all those who think fracturing his spine means he’s gone deaf, or blind, or stupid. And after that things are a trifle more cordial between Will and his nursemaid.

They’re out for a walk, when it happens. The wind is blowing heavily and a passing car flings up a stone that comes sailing through the air directly towards Will’s head. His hand twitches, the only motion he can manage, all that’s left of the instinctive movement to raise his hands to protect his face.

But Clark. She steps forward, flows through a series of gestures and poses almost too fast for Will to see. The end result is the stone reversing direction and skittering harmlessly away, and Louisa going still and silent as though she’s been turned to stone.

“Clark,” Will says hoarsely. “Was that you?” Louisa shrugs.

“Sort of?” she says, the upward inflection at the end of the sentence making her statement sound like a question. “Maybe a bit?”

“Maybe a lot,” Will retorts. “You’re a bloody airbender!” Clark relaxes, like an immense weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

“Only a little,” she says. “Not a very strong one.” Will has a strong sense of déjà vu. This is just like when he found out Nathan could bloodbend. Except bloodbending is just a rare skill. Airbending? Is out and out extinct.

He says as much to Louisa, who shrugs. “My dad says it’s possible a few families escaped the Air Nomads massacre. Or that my ancestors married into other tribes before the war and recessive genes meant we ended up as airbenders. We don’t know. But I can do it.” There’s a faint smile on Clark’s face. It is pride, Will realises. He remembers that pride, that security in one’s ability. He remembers feeling strong.

What Will wants to say is ‘how could you lie to me’. What he actually says is: “How much can you do?”

Clark’s smile widens.

It turns out, a fair bloody bit. Will’s beginning to doubt Clark’s repeated claims of only being a mediocre airbender at best. They go for picnics, and she uses the wind to roll up the picnic blanket. They drive out to a deserted field, and Will watches Clark unfurl her glider and take to the sky, riding the currents and the air itself. Once, memorably, Louisa bends the air around his body and Will stands unaided for a whole minute before she has to lower him back into his chair, sweat standing out on her brow.

As the months roll on, Clark becomes more comfortable using her ability around him. Eventually, she is comfortable enough to airbend in front of Nathan, who is suitably impressed. And there are other things, concerts with red dresses and a disastrous outing to the races and an even more disastrous visit from Alicia and Rupert that leaves him feeling like someone’s punched a hole straight through his chest.

And eventually, it is Clark’s birthday.

He gets through dinner and Clark’s truly awful boyfriend well enough. It’s when they’re having cake in the living room later that something clicks into place in Will’s brain. The air in the room is wrong – or rather, it’s disturbed, the way it is when Clark’s around. But she’s not here at the moment. She’s gone to put her new bumblebee tights on.

“There’s a bender here,” he says softly to Josie, seated on his left. But far from being alarmed, she doesn’t look remotely bothered.

“Of course there is. We’re all benders,” Josie says easily. Will’s brain stops.

“All of you,” he repeats stupidly. He’s never met so many benders in one family before.

“Yes. My side of the family are all waterbenders. It’s Bernard’s side who’s got the rare genes, or the lucky hand of fate, or the blessing from God. Whichever way you choose to view it.”

“And no one knows?” Will asks. Josie shrugs.

“Most folks know about my side. Not many know about Bernard. We kept it hushed up as much as possible, for the girls’ sake, when they were little. Airbenders aren’t exactly common, these days. Thankfully, neither of them were the type to bend in the playground.” Will had been exactly that type.

“But you’ve told me,” he says, and Josie pats his hand.

“Well. Our Lou trusts you, and she’s a decent judge of character.”

“No, she’s not,” Bernard puts in around a mouthful of cake. Clark dances back in, her stripy tights on her legs, her smile a mile wide.

“Thank you!” she says again, and casually bends a gust of wind to gently push her plate of cake towards her. Will’s never seen her so open with her abilities before.

“You know the rules, Lou,” Josie says sternly. “No bending in the house.” Clark pouts.

“Not even on my birthday?” she asks. Josie raises her eyes up to heaven.

“Airbenders,” she says in exasperation. “They think they can argue their way out of everything.”

“Because we can,” Bernard and Clark say at the exact same moment. Clark and her dad exchange identical conspiratorial grins, and Will can’t help but smile back.

Clark accompanies him to Alicia’s wedding. Her presence is the only thing that makes the whole pompous affair bearable. And Christ, she must be a bit drunk, because she lets him spin her around the dance floor in his chair, she bends a glass towards her in public, right in front of Alicia. Alicia’s mouth goes tight and pursed like she’s sucked on a lemon. And fuck, it’s the first time Will’s felt right since the maze, since he discovered that one night not so long ago Clark’s ability to bend the air around her hadn’t saved her from being pack raped. Every time he thinks about it he feels sick. His beautiful, impossible girl. And yet without that awful thing that had happened to her, Will never would have met her. Just as he never would have met her if he hadn’t broken his spine.

Will doesn’t like to think about that overmuch.

They spend the night in the hotel. Louisa has to airbend to get him into bed. She falls asleep beside him in the darkness, her breathing soft and even, like the bellows that fans his flame. For the first time in a long while, Will considers if it is possible for him to firebend again.

And then of course he gets sick, and then there’s Mauritius. Once he’s well enough, he joins Clark and Nathan out in the sunshine. This is a little slice of paradise, and no one here cares that Will was once a firebender, or the head of a major corporation. For the first time, Will starts to consider that perhaps he is more than his ability to bend, more than a CEO or a son or a leader. Perhaps in the end it is acceptable, to be Will Traynor, this version of Will Traynor.

It’s not enough, to make him want to stay. Not enough to accept shackling Clark to him for the rest of his life. Not enough, when he remembers who he was before.

Switzerland is white and terrifying, and Louisa appears at the last minute to keep him company as he greets the end. He takes the medication dissolved in a glass of water, and feels the effects of it kick in almost immediately. There’s no pain. It’s like falling asleep. Clark’s here, and she loves him, and Will’s drifting further and further away from her even as she begs him to stay just a little longer.

And he wants to stay, if only for her. But there are flames at his fingertips, and he is rising towards the light.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like there should be more Me Before You crossovers.


End file.
